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Topic: A classical “Wonder Woman” appearing out of her native context to save the day

The backstory of DC Comics’ Wonder Woman is heavily inspired by characters, places, and events from classical mythology. DC’s Wonder Woman is portrayed as appearing in a variety of different places and times in history, all while maintaining her essential identity as the Amazon Princess Diana. Entries for this contest should take a “Wonder Woman” from classical history, mythology, or literature and come up with some pretext for setting her in a place and time outside of her native one. In that new context, this “Wonder Woman” should use her “super” powers/skills that are apparent from her portrayals in the classical world to solve some problem that was confounding the people of her new context.

This contest is open to any student enrolled full-time in high school (anywhere in the world) during the current school year. An award of $250.00 will be given to the author of the best entry written in English on the specified theme. The entry may be a short story, a play, a poem, or an original literary work of any other sort.

This contest was established in 1985 by the Department of Classics at Monmouth College in Monmouth, Illinois, to honor Bernice L. Fox, to promote the study of Latin and the Classics in high schools, and to recognize the good work of high school students.

Judging

The entry should make frequent, specific, accurate, and appropriate references to events from historical or other classical sources, and to the circumstances of the context into which you are placing your “Wonder Woman.” Papers will be judged on accuracy to ancient sources, appropriate use of those sources, skillfulness in incorporating your “Wonder Woman” into your chosen context, originality, quality of material, thematic development, appropriateness, correctness of English style, and effectiveness of presentation.

Contest Guidelines

· Entries must be typed, double-spaced, and on 8-1/2 x 11-inch paper.

· Printing on both sides of a page is acceptable.

· No electronic submissions.

· The entry must fit the theme of this year's contest.

· No minimum or maximum length is required.

· The entrant's name and school must not appear on the entry.

· Contestants should place a personal identification code (a randomly selected nine-character series) on the top left-hand corner of every page of the entry and on a separate 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheet of paper, which also contains the following information:

o author's name, date of birth, and personal identification code;

o school name, address, and phone number; and

o teacher's name.

· No more than ten entries will be accepted from any individual school, and only one entry per student will be accepted

· Failure to follow these guidelines will result in disqualification.

· All entries must be postmarked no later than March 15th, and mailed to the following address:

o Dr. Robert Holschuh Simmons

o Monmouth College

o 700 E. Broadway Ave.

o Monmouth, IL 61462.

· All entries become the property of Monmouth College.

· The winner will be announced on or close to April 15th on the contest website.

· Every entrant will receive a certificate of participation from Monmouth College.

· For further information, including a list of previous winners, please consult the contest website (http://department.monm.edu/classics/Department/FoxContest/).

· Send any questions to Dr. Simmons at rsimmons@monmouthcollege.edu.

About Bernice L. Fox

Bernice L. Fox taught courses in English, Latin and Greek at Monmouth College from 1947 to 1981, and served as chair of the Department of Classics from 1970 until her retirement in 1981. Throughout her long and dynamic career, she worked tirelessly to promote the Classics in Illinois high schools and colleges. She is also the author of Tela Charlottae, the Latin translation of E. B. White's Charlotte's Web. In 1991, Monmouth College conferred on her the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters. She died in 2003.

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(Photo: "library" by Viva Vivanista, licensed under CC BY 2.0)